For today’s Weekend Wanderings I thought I would give you a look around some of the exhibits at the Melbourne International Flower and Garden show. For most of the days I went I was using the Tamron SP 90mm macro lens, but on the first day I left the Nikon 24-70mm lens on the D850. Sorry this post is a day late, I find myself really exhausted from going in there so much. On top of that going to Calamity Jane at the Arts Centre added to the tiredness. Fantastic play, if you get a get chance, go and see it. Read more

Giving images names can be so hard and I try not to do it too often, but I think if the post is just going to be about one image, I should make an attempt to name it.

The Cape Nelson Lighthouse was a little like the Port Fairy one, out on it’s own and, perhaps, left to the elements. The cliff that this one sits on, I can imagine, would get very windy and there wouldn’t be a lot of shelter from the elements. Even the day Pam, Mike and I were there we could see that. It wasn’t a bad day as far as the weather went, but you can sense that it could be really rough and really cold in winter when the wind picked up. Read more

The trip along the Great Ocean Road was fantastic and I got to see many parts that I haven’t seen before, then others that I haven’t seen since I was a child. It is a magical part of the country and having two people in the car that have never seen it before saying “wow” over and over was quite wonderful. Pam and Mike loved it and thought it was special. Read more

This morning I had to get up very early to head to St Kilda for a long exposure workshop. As I was heading there I was driving through so much fog. It was fantastic and I would love to have stopped to take photos, but I had to get to going. We are getting so much fog this year, so I am really excited as the last few years we have had almost none. I need to get out more. Read more

In yesterday’s post I showed you some images taken with the Samyang 12mm fisheye lens. I have some more images for you today. These are more from outside in the streets. It is quite amazing what happens to buildings when you photograph them with this lens.

I tried some photos of the street art, the three statues that stand on the corner of Swanston and Bourke streets. I also tried getting some movement with the trams, then put them together in a small video for you.

The weather has been stunning, sadly it means winter is ending and summer is returning. I’m not looking forward to summer, but I am planning on doing something different this summer I think. You will have to wait to find out what.

Here is a gallery with a few more images. Take care and I hope you are enjoying your weekend where ever you are.

Today it was all about Queenstown. We arrived yesterday afternoon and got a good nights sleep. We stayed in a great place, Mt Lyell Anchorage, and I can’t say enough about it. It was comfortable and very well equipped. It was great to stay somewhere where the owner thought about what we might need as travelers. I would give it a 10 out of 10. Plus the shower was amazing.

As I was packing the car this morning I turned around and saw this. I quickly grabbed the camera to take it. It reminds me of other places, I don’t know, it reminds me of a scene from Northern Exposure, the television show from the 90’s.

Queenstown has an interesting history. A mining town, though not anymore, but there is evidence of it everywhere. Rather than just repeat what someone else has said, I’m going to give you a link to an article on it, Queenstown, Tasmania: Travel guide and things to do.

With that in mind a town that I initially thought I would just spend a night in and wouldn’t be that interested in, has turned out to be an absolute highlight. I love the history and you see that everywhere. The town has quite an industrial look to it and I would say not a lot of money is here, not anymore. I know they are hoping for some tourism money, and I would say a big yes to photographers going there. If you love that old town look, and dare I say abandoned, it is all there.

This is Iron Blow and the hole was created by mining. The mining here destroyed the area. It is a sad story of how mining can go wrong.

We have now left Queenstown and arrived in Strahan. We left Queenstown earlier than we were going to, because it was raining. It was hard to get any images with the rain, and on top of it was the wind blowing the rain straight at us. The Australian east coast is being drenched, and lots of flooding up on the NSW coast. Unfortunately, it also means it is heading our way. I’m trying to work out how to take photos and get some great shots in all the rain.Will see what happens in the next few days.

As this blog evolves I know I will be trying things and seeing how it all works together. Today I thought I might try combining the photos I’ve had up on Instagram with a bit of a catch up.

I was out teaching the other night and I took this while talking about bracketing shots. It is of the Docklands down in Melbourne along the Yarra River.

Tasmania

I leave in a few days. It is funny how a holiday or trip away just seems so conceptual until it is almost time to leave. I know this trip has been like that, and now I am starting to think about packing and what I will take with me. Thankfully we’re taking a car so space isn’t going to be too much of an issue. Still have to fit everything in, but we can take more than if we were going on a plane.

Fingers crossed for good weather, though the forecast isn’t looking good, but still time for that to change. We can deal with cold, overcast skies, fog, frost, but not rain or snow.

The lake at the bottom of the Alfred Nicholas Memorial Garden. I did a bit more work on this one for Instagram.

Monochrome Madness

This will not run next week. Next week the blog is going to be about Tasmania.

Articles Published

I have had a couple of articles published, one on Digital Photography School and one a new site for me, Formatt Hitech. Here are the links.

This is from the Formatt Hitech blog and is pretty much as the title says. I think most of you know how passionate I am about shooting where you live.

I hope you enjoy them.

This is my attempt at photographing Steavenson Falls in the rain. I went to Marysville last Friday, but it just rained while we were there. I had a hard time focusing and keeping my filter dry while trying to capture the water of the waterfall. A lot of water after recent rains.

Photos from Instagram

The photos from this post have all been up on Instagram this week. I do post everyday, but of course some of them have already been on the blog. It is a challenge trying to find a new photo each day. I’ve added captions to them so you can see what they are and where they were taken.

The foyer of 333 Collins Street. The foyer used to be the Chamber and Vestibule for the Commercial Bank of Australia. It is now an office building and the new building was built around the original foyer.

In the last couple of weeks I seem to be spending more and more of my time in the city taking photos. I really want to try some new things, and I know the images I’m taking are a little different to my usual work. Though, I have to admit, I’m not totally sure what I want to do yet. I know I seem confused and perhaps I am. Then I was reminded that I promised to blog here more and I haven’t been. It is getting crazy, I have the next issue of Dynamic Range Magazine due out in about two weeks, my book on Banyule Flats has to be finished in the next month or so, and I have a whole new body of work I’m itching to start. See, crazy. Let me show you what I have been doing.

I’ve been going back to the city and isolated places and seeing what I can do with them.

I enjoy making them look isolated, mysterious and perhaps dark. I’m still playing around with the processing and seeing what I can do with them. I think it helps when I know what I am trying to do, what feeling I want to express.

This is under the rail bridge that runs between Flinders Street Station and Southern Cross Station. It is an area that is often inhabited by homeless people, except when it rains. Then there is too much water. It is a beautiful underpass, if that is the right phrase. I liked how isolated it looked, almost lonely.

Sometimes it is also interesting to just take some photos that have an almost abstract quality to them. I like the columns here. They are black and shiny, but everything reflects in them, so they almost blend into the surrounds. It is the second time I have been there to take photos, and I suspect not the last.

With all three images they are in places that I know I will go back to. It is nice to have places to photograph over and over and see what you can do. Get them in different lights and different seasons.

With the last photo I have also done it in black and white for Monochrome madness on my other blog.

Today is Monochrome Madness over on my main blog and there are submissions from all over the world. It is a post that many enjoy, including me. I like the challenge and how it makes me do a lot more monochrome images than I wouldn’t otherwise do. I often don’t do a post here on my images, but I thought it might be interesting to do a before and after of the image that I did for it today. I thought it would be good to show both the colour image and the black and white photography version.

This is the image as I took it. I have done very little to it. I like the scene, the way the wood stretched out like a spider or something. The other thing that I really liked was how the weathered the wood was. If this image was near the ocean, you would think it was driftwood, but it is about 300km from the coast.

As I saw the image on the computer I could see that it was really void of colour, so I thought there was a good chance it would look good in monochrome.

I think I was right. I really wanted to emphasize the grain in the wood and I did a lot of work to try and bring that out a lot more. It was important to me to draw that out as it was what drew me to photograph it in the first place. I also played around with the sky, trying to decide whether to make it more stormy or do more high key processing and almost eliminate it. In the end I decided I liked the look of the stormy look, it gives it a more ominous look, well I think it does.

I am happy with how it has come out, it was a good one to do. I will have to look for more images from the Mallee to make into black and white. Here is a gallery so you can see them side by side a bit better.

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